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Editor's Note: Camilo Egaña is the Camilo driver . The opinions expressed in this article are exclusive to the author.
(CNN Spanish) - In the war in Angola, I was on the opposite side of Arturo Pérez-Reverte.
The writer was then a Spanish Television correspondent who told the miseries of wars.
Pérez-Reverte moved throughout Angola with the troops of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita)
And I, with 17 poorly completed years and a book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that he carried everywhere as a bible, was part of the Cuban troops that Fidel Castro, with the approval of Leonid Ilich Brézhne in Moscow, had sent to prop up to the other faction in conflict, the Popular Movement of Liberation of Angola (Mpla).
Perez-Reverte, with that half smile with which he splashes what he says, asks me in Miami, once we have finished an interview, what was I doing in Angola.
Operation Carlota of Fidel Castro in Angola began in November 1975 and ended in 1991.
In 1974, after the Carnation Revolution, Portugal granted independence to its colonies, including Angola.
A civil war began. Portugal in principle supported the left and the US, Zaire and South Africa the insurgent movements that did not want a communist exit for that country, rich and miserable at the same time.
In 1975 the onslaught of the South African Army begins in the south. And Zaire's forces from the north. The idea is to take over the country, even before decolonization is proclaimed.
The Angolan government asks the Soviet Union and Cuba for military help.
That lasted 16 years. I was two and I have never suffered so much hunger and so much fear.
Many of the soldiers were teenagers in the Compulsory Military Service. We were going from Havana to Luanda, hiding in merchant ships.
Hidden, because international conventions did not allow the transfer of military personnel and equipment in such ships.
More than 2,000 Cubans died there.
I returned to Havana in 1983 and the last Cuban soldier must have returned to Cuba in 1991.
In fact, I was already working as a Cuban television journalist when they sent me to cover the repatriation of the remains of the dead.
Before going to the air, a girl approached me and said, pointing to one of the small ballot boxes wrapped in the Cuban flag, that her father was there.
I don't usually talk or write about it, but the day I do it will be with "the authority of failure." That's what Scott Fitzgerald said and he knew what he was talking about.
More than 30 years later, an Angolan girl who works in a candy store in my neighborhood tells me: "When you left, we started to rebuild everything."
She is married to a Cuban. He tells me about his father, who just died. Cancer. He admits that he knows little about what is happening in Angola today. That goes from time to time and period.
Do not know for example Isabel Dos Santos is the daughter of the former president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos.
He has not read that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) - the same as "The Papers of Panama" - has just published an investigation that is already known as the "Luanda Leaks", in which he reveals more than 700,000 documents on companies in tax havens, companies on behalf of third parties and other business modalities that would have made it “the richest woman in Africa”.
Nor will he have read that the Prosecutor of Angola has decided to accuse her this week of embezzlement during her 18-month term at the helm of state oil company Sonangol.
On Twitter, something that millions read exclusively these days, Isabel Dos Santos denies all of the above and warns that she is preparing to defend herself:
The ICIJ report is based on many fake documents and false information, it is a coordinated political attack in coordinations with the “Angolan Government”. 715 thousand documents read? Who believes that? #Icij #lies
- Isabel Dos Santos (@isabelaangola) January 19, 2020
“The accusations that have been made against me in recent days are extremely confusing and false. This is a very well concentrated, orchestrated and coordinated political attack. I have hired lawyers to act against these defamatory and incorrect reports and complaints. ”
José Eduardo dos Santos ruled Angola 40 years; until 2017.
Pérez-Reverte, with that half smile with which he splashes what he says, asks me what I was doing in Angola. And why he walked with that libraco of the chosen works of Rousseau.
A couple of nights ago during a dinner, someone with three cowboys on top said: "Luckily there are still men today able to give their lives for a flag."
I did not wait for desserts.